About

Wi-Fi enable your stereo or TV

Connect the OnAir Box to your existing stereo or TV to Wi-Fi enable them. You can then use the OnAir Player app on your phone, tablet or computer to control your music and stream it to your stereo or TV.

OnAir Box comes with two USB ports that allow you to connect external storage devices such as USB drives or external hard drives. Once connected, OnAir Box will scan these devices for music and add everything it finds into your personal music library within the OnAir Player app. All your music will be available on all your devices, even when you’re on the go. That's what we call "your private music cloud".

Your private music cloud

No more syncing music between devices or uploading to the cloud! Access all your music from all your devices instantly, wherever you are.

Grab your phone or tablet while out in the park and access your library of thousands of songs stored at home. Sitting at work, open the OnAir Player web app to stream the music through your browser.

So where is my music stored?

Your music remains where you originally stored it. OnAir technology indexes all your music on your OnAir Box and on every device where the app is installed. This index is then made available to all your devices, so when you tap a song the software accesses the music where it is stored and streams it to any of your chosen devices, on demand and in real time.

This way you can access many gigabytes of music wherever you are, without sacrificing limited and valuable storage on your mobile devices.

Then how can I add music to my private cloud?

Simply connect a storage device to your OnAir Box, and it will automatically find all the music it contains and seamlessly add it to your library.

Music from your computer will only be available while it's powered on and connected to the internet. We therefore recommend connecting your music collection to your OnAir Box and keeping it always on. OnAir Box is a very low power-consuming device, so you likely won’t even notice it on your electricity bill.

If your music library fits on a 32 GB microSD card, then you can also insert this card into the microSD card reader of the OnAir Box to make your music available everywhere.

Cloud Music Providers

We will soon introduce an integration between OnAir Player and SoundCloud. This will allow you to link your SoundCloud account and then find all your SoundCloud playlists and "liked" songs merged into your personal music library.

Going forward, we are also evaluating integrations with music services such as Spotify. We also welcome feedback from customers and backers on what you would like to see in terms of additional integrations in the future.

Multi-room streaming

OnAir Player and the OnAir Box allow you to stream your music throughout your entire home while controlling it from your favorite device. It’s as easy as selecting where the music should play, and then just choosing your song.

Play On Dialog

Player UI with song list

All your linked OnAir Boxes will show up automatically as streaming destinations. Additionally, every device that has installed the OnAir Player app will become visible as a destination for streaming, including your PC or Mac. You can also rename them and assign custom icons to make each device more recognizable.

Stream to existing stereo equipment

To use your existing stereo equipment as an output, simply connect an OnAir Box and link it as a device to your account. You can simultaneously link multiple OnAir Boxes, for instance one for your TV, one for your bedroom stereo and one for your living room.

OnAir Box can be connected to your stereo via a standard headphone jack or an optical cable (S/PDIF) for lossless quality streaming.

OnAir Box communicates via Wi-Fi, but you can also connect it using a standard Ethernet cable if you happen to have one next to your stereo.

Stream to your TV

OnAir Box also features an HDMI port so you can connect it to your existing TV or AV receiver. This comes in especially handy if you want OnAir Box to link into your home entertainment system.

Below is a screenshot of the display you will see on your TV when using OnAir Player. It also shows up while music is not actively streaming to the TV. This allows you to leave it on at a party as a nice backdrop to show the information about the current song and what’s next in the OnAir Player queue, while temporarily playing music from your traditional stereo.

The TV app is designed to display information and play previously selected music streams, rather than browsing through your music. We don’t think using a TV remote is a good way to interact with music, since we are in the 21st century after all! The primary controller for your music remains your phone, tablet or computer to provide a modern and enhanced user experience.

Connect your TV via HDMI

We also have an app for Amazon’s Kindle Fire TV if you happen to own one, which provides yet another option for visualizing your music on your TV.

Stream to other devices

OnAir Player also supports streaming to Chromecast and some DLNA devices. OnAir Box will find these devices automatically and simply add them to your list of available outputs for streaming. OnAir Player will route your music automatically via the nearest OnAir Box, which will forward the music to your desired external device. Support for additional devices such as Roku and AppleTV are planned for future updates.

The OnAir Box Device

OnAir Box is based on Android TV hardware and runs a modified version of Android 4.2.2. We decided to build upon proven hardware and software to minimize the risks involved with such an ambitious project.

OnAir Box is essentially a multi-purpose Android device that can be used for more than "only" OnAir Player music streaming. It comes rooted and with USB debugging enabled, so it's easy to install your own Android apps if you wish!

For example, you can also plug in a wireless mouse (via USB), connect it to your TV (via HDMI), and then install apps from Google Play or surf the web.

Supported devices

OnAir Box leverages OnAir Player apps currently available for the web, most Android devices and computers.

Android phone app (also works on most Amazon Kindle devices)

Android tablet app

Windows tablet app (e.g. Surface)

Windows, Mac OSX and Linux app

Web app (optimized for tablets like iPad)

Amazon Fire TV app

OUYA app (gaming console)

Google TV app

What about the iPhone?

There is no iPhone app currently available, but we are working on having one ready by the ship date.

What about the iPad?

You can already use your iPad to control the music using our web app. We are also planning to build a native iPad app that will allow access to your local iPad music in the future.

Our mission

Our mission is to make it easy and affordable to access all your music wherever you are, and to effortlessly stream it around your home.

We started on this journey almost 3 years ago when we started to develop OnAir Player, and are excited to reach a critical milestone with this introduction of OnAir Box.

Simplicity and beauty

We believe technology should be simple and awesome. We have put a lot of effort into developing beautiful apps for phones, tablets and computers, and have always focused on simplicity. OnAir Player and OnAir Box are designed to be easy to use, so everyone can enjoy it. No one needs to be a rocket scientist or computer geek to enjoy the ability to stream their music everywhere!

What is the current status?

We have been working on this project for almost 3 years and have come a long way. We have developed apps for Android phones, tablets, PCs and Macs as well as a web app and a TV app for Android based set top boxes.

We have a working hardware prototype of the OnAir Box and have already successfully run OnAir Player software on it. We have found a manufacturer in China who will be able to produce high quality devices in large numbers.

Why do we need the money?

We need your help to kick-start this project for 2 main reasons:

Low price

We need to manufacture a large quantity of OnAir Box devices to be able to offer them to you and others at a reasonable price point.

Further development

We already have a working prototype of the OnAir Box and the software is mostly complete. However, there is still some work to be done to optimize the experience and make the initial setup experience as smooth as possible for customers.

We are also working on an iPhone version and new features like integrations to various cloud music services. Your OnAir Box will update itself automatically, so you will get access to new features as soon as they are released.

Roadmap

We are planning to ship the OnAir Box in June 2015. This is our high-level roadmap until then:

Jan - March 2015: finish OnAir Box software

February - April 2015: finalize hardware prototype

May 2015: start production

June 2015: ship to backers

We added some buffer time to our roadmap to minimize the likelihood of having to push back our shipping date. That means there's a good chance we will ship even earlier than expected.

The Team

Risks and challenges

There are always risks involved with ambitious projects, especially those involving hardware and creating new products that haven't been built before. Those risks include delays in the manufacturing process as well as software development, and may lead to shipping delays or software bugs that need to be fixed down the road.

We have taken several steps to minimize those risks:

• We already have working apps on several platforms, so the hardest part of the software development is already done and working.
• We are building on existing and proven hardware. This not only helps ensure quality, but also lowers risks related to our supply chain. Since we build on the Android platform, we could even switch to a different manufacturer if necessary.

We promise to be transparent about any issues on the horizon and keep you in the loop. After all, we consider our backers to be a core part of our team. Let’s build something great together that has never been built before. Let’s build OnAir Box!